"A bipartisan group of senators today introduced the Foreign Agents Registration Amendments Act. The bill… creates a dedicated enforcement unit in the National Security Division to enforce FARA provisions," US Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a press release.
Feinstein noted that the goal of FARA was to ensure that individuals working on behalf of a foreign government or business disclose those relationships.
"The public has a right to know if a foreign government is spreading propaganda in the United States," Feinstein emphasized.
The bill's purpose is to ensure Americans acting as agents of a foreign government report their activities to the US government. It would end knotholes that allow individuals to avoid FARA enforcement actions and update civil and criminal enforcement provisions, the release stated.
READ MORE: Simonyan Mocks Registration of Sputnik Content Producer as 'Foreign Agent' in US
A number of Russian media outlets, including Sputnik, have faced strong pressure in the United States over the past several months, with US lawmakers and intelligence community insisting that Russia has been allegedly making numerous attempts to influence the US 2016 presidential election.
Following these accusations, in November 2017, the US Department of Justice forced the US branch of the RT broadcaster to register as a "foreign agent" in the United States under the FARA.
However, other foreign state media, working in the United States, such as the United Kingdom's BBC, Germany's Deutsche Welle, have not faced similar requests.
Commenting on the US move, the Sputnik and RT the editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, stated that the RT broadcaster had to choose between two options: registering and being charged in a criminal case by the US government.
READ MORE: Simonyan Comments on US Calls to Ban Russian Media From News Feeds
Russian authorities, as well as the country's media, have repeatedly refuted the allegations as unsubstantiated, noting that none of them have been proven by facts.